


you're an upstanding model of the modern day cain with impeccable style

by knightofcauldrons



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Graduation Arc, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Repression, Taz Graduation, speculation about fitzroys past, the violence isnt SUPER graphic but its kinda graphic and better safe than sorry, title is a lyric from modern day cain by idkhow, tpp references? in MY taz fic? its more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 23:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofcauldrons/pseuds/knightofcauldrons
Summary: A half-elf. A sudden surge of magic. A new school. Anger is a five letter word.





	you're an upstanding model of the modern day cain with impeccable style

He's not an intimidating figure, he'll be the first to admit it. He's skinny, he wears glasses, he's a little on the shorter side and he talks like the pretentious college professor everyone hates. 

But, there's something about him that is very, very strange.

You see, there’s an anger inside of him. It’s an anger that burns like a fire. It’s an anger that he’s been running away from his whole life. 

As a child, it was an anger like temper tantrums, like jealousy, like snarling and growling at the other young boys in town. Like being _double-dog dared_ and proving those little bastards _wrong_ even if he skins a knee or twists an ankle or breaks someone's nose. 

He breaks a lot of people's noses as a kid. He gets a lot of noses broken in return, which he supposes is fair enough, but it still makes him want to snap someone's wrist, and the wrist of his current bully is looking very appealing... 

Word of his violent outbursts gets around fast. _Have you heard about the Maplecourts' kid? The small one. Best to stay away from the damn thing. Violent little bastard._

And when that happens, a lot of things collapse at once. Fitzroy never had friends in the first place, but he definitely doesn't have any now. Now, he has kids who whisper behind his back and classmates with fearful eyes who walk pass him with quick feet. The _tap tap tap_ of their shoes on the floor as they rush pass him drives Fitzroy crazy. 

He goes home one day, and his mother and father stare down at him with stern faces. His parents scold him, and Fitzroy may be young be he can still read between the lines. _You're a thing to be ashamed about. Your tantrums are a burden and your petty fights are embarrassing._

And Fitzroy realizes something, just then. The jeering of his classmates may hurt, but it doesn't hurt as much as being the _failure_ of his family. It doesn't hurt as much as being the reason his family's reputation is ruined. 

So he grows a bit older. And he learns to walk away from fights. He rebuilds a reputation and tries to play nice with his peers. And his anger evolves into a different sort of anger.

It's an anger like clenched teeth, clenched fists. Clenched eyes, tight enough to give him a headache. It was an anger like glaring at the back of the heads of his bullies when they weren't looking. It was an anger like tense smiles, like the crescent shape of his nails on his palms. Anger like pretending he’s not angry. Anger like repression. Because good things don’t happen when he’s angry. People get hurt when he’s angry, then people get mad at him, and then he becomes _nothing_, for he is nothing if people think poorly of him and his family. 

It’s better for everyone if he’s never angry.

It's an impossible task, to never be angry. He tasks himself with it anyways. 

He was happy as a teenager, though. He still felt the residual anger of his childhood, but he was happy nonetheless. It was anger like whacking his friends with fake swords at Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School underneath the light of the moon. Anger like shaking the hands of his opponent when he’s beaten, his grip a little too hard and a little too tense. 

Now, at least, he has something to take his anger out on. Instead of punching in the teeth of some classmate, he's deflating the face of a training dummy. No one thinks it's weird if you punch a training dummy with more force than necessary. They just think you're a diligent student. And Fitzroy is happy with that. Fitzroy is happy that, for once, the anger he releases during training is regarded as _passion_, _determination_. For once, his anger is actually worth something. His anger fuels him as he work towards _knighthood_. 

It doesn't last. His anger morphs once again. 

Anger like discovering his magic.

Anger like leaving Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School. 

Anger like everything he’s ever worked towards being ruined with a flick of his fingers and an unfathomable _rampage_ of _magic_. 

It's the day Fitzroy is supposed to leave for the Annex. He has never felt so angry in his life.

Fitzroy tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach when he gazes at the Annex. 

He stands by the gate. He stares at the pitiful tower. He presses his nails into his palm and he breathes. In, out. He is angry. But he’ll ignore it. He’ll file his anger away... for future consideration. 

He is met once again with an anger. An anger like _three_ beds for _three_ people in _one_ dorm.

It’s anger like small-talk. Small-talk with his roommates, small-talk with Groundsy, small-talk with the upperclassmen like Rolandus and Buckminster. Anger like trying to stay _composed_, _charismatic_, _polite_, even though all he wants to do is march back to the campus of Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School and tear apart the rest of what his magic hadn’t already destroyed. 

It’s anger like when someone says, _oh, you’re the failed student, aren’t you_? It’s anger like smiles that look more like grimaces and nodding in the _affirmative_ to those sort of questions. It’s anger like the word _failed_ because _Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt_ isn’t a _failure_\- And yet here he is, a place where he’s not even a _sir_ because no one calls him such. No one even gets his surname right. It was a surname that once meant prestige and now it means nothing. But Fitzroy just clenches his teeth and nods along and pretends he isn’t offended. He spends the day pretending that his only personality traits are _polite_ and _somewhat annoyed_.

It's an anger like catching glimpses of Prestidigitation around his fingertips. Magic. The thing that ruined him. And yet _everyone knows Prestidigitation_, says Buckminster. 

It’s anger like pretending he’s a nice young man when there’s a fire inside him that keeps burning and one day it’ll burn him from the inside out. 

It’s anger like going to sleep later that night. Hands laced primly across his stomach, staring at the ceiling and counting each bump of the popcorn wall because he has nothing better to do despite the restless fire inside him that urges him he needs to _do something_. Argo is in the next bed over, sleeping on his side and an arm under his head, his blue hair free from the ponytail. His hair’s longer than Fitzroy thought. Fitzroy is acutely aware of the sound of the floor creaking every time the nameless firbolg shifts. 

Fitzroy sighs. It’s loud and dramatic enough for Argo to look over at him with a curious glance and a raised eyebrow.

“You alright, friend?” Argo asks him. 

Fitzroy grimaces. 

“I’m alright, I suppose," he says. 

Argo looks less than convinced. He shifts position, propping up his elbow. 

“I know the Annex seems kind of… Less than great,” says Argo, “but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Fitzroy just keeps grimacing.

“It’s.. A step-down, probably, from Clyde’s,” Argo continues, “but.. Hey! It’s a new beginning for us. All three of us. Sure, maybe we’re all in over our heads. But we’re in over our heads together, and that has to count for something, doesn’t it?” 

...Fitzroy has to admit he’s made somewhat of a bond with his two roommates. So that has to count for something. At least he’ll have them. 

“Class starts tomorrow, you know. It’ll be a big day for us! And I’m sure you’ll go into total _I have to prove myself to the upperclassmen_ mode tomorrow, but you can’t do that if you tire yourself out by staying up late and worrying!"

Fitzroy still doesn't seem convinced. Argo sighs and gets up from his bed, walking over to Fitzroy's. He looks at Fitzroy expectantly. "Well? Scoot over." 

Fitzroy furrows his eyebrows at him, but complies. Argo shifts onto the bed next to Fitzroy. Argo looks past Fitzroy, staring out the window. 

"Do you know your constellations, Maplecod?"

"No. And it's, uh, Maplecourt."

"Right, right," says Argo, "Maplecourt."

"...What exactly are you trying to achieve?" 

"Shush," Argo tells him. "I'm going to impart on you my vast knowledge of constellations." 

"_Vast_ knowledge?"

"I spent a lot of years at sea."

"Sure, then. Sail me away, seaman."

"Great. Don't call me that." Argo shifts his attention away from Fitzroy. "You see that group of stars right there?"

"Uh... Yes."

"That's Pegasus." 

"How the _fuck_ is that a pegasus?" said Fitzroy, louder than probably necessary. 

There was a beat of silence. 

Fitzroy awkwardly cleared his throat. "Apologies, I didn't mean to raise my voice, I'm just kind of tired and-" 

"No no, it's fine!" says Argo, and Fitzroy realizes that Argo's shoulders are shaking because he's silently laughing. "It's- It's a valid question!"

"..Oh."

"I've heard _so_ many people say that," says Argo with a smile, "it's a valid question. It doesn't really look like a pegasus, does it?"

"I... Can see the resemblance," says the nameless firbolg from his spot on the floor. 

"_I_ can't," says Fitzroy with a wrinkled nose. 

"Well, look- That line of stars right there is the head and neck," says Argo.

"And the square is the torso," says Bud. 

"And those two lines of stars right there are the front legs," says Argo.

Fitzroy squints up at the stars. "Then where are the wings?"

Argo shrugged. "Use your imagination."

"It looks like the baby pegasus," says Bud.

"It doesn't even look like a _pegasus_," says Fitzroy. 

"Oh, then you'll _hate_ this next constellation," says Argo. "That one. That's Cassiopeia." 

"...That's a squiggly line." 

Argo grinned. "That's Cassiopeia." 

"That's _bullshit_." 

Argo laughed. "Fair enough! There's stories behind each constellation, you know." 

"Oh, enlighten me," says Fitzroy, half sarcastically. 

Argo just smiled and lowered his voice, and told the story about a princess concocted from the half-accurate stories he heard out at sea. 

Fitzroy leans back and listens. About halfway through Argo's tale, his eyes become heavy. Fitzroy is only half-conscious and feels the closest he's ever felt to _relaxed_ and Fitzroy muses, for just a moment, that the way you soothe a raging fire is with water. He lets himself slip away into a dreamless sleep. 

Argo smiles, happy with himself. 

"...Impressive," Bud mutters. 

"Things got boring out at sea," said Argo. "Had to entertain ourselves somehow." 

Fitzroy wakes up that next morning feeling marginally less pissed off than usual. He evens manages a weak smile at Argo. 

There’s still an anger in him. But now it’s a little more manageable. And perhaps, for now, that is enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> griffin: okay, here's my character. he's an uppity twink half-elf.  
me: okay, he's probably a wizard. or, listening to the way he talks about his magic, he could be a warlock or sorcerer  
griffin: he fights a lot and went to knight school.  
me: okay.... so he's probably a fighter??  
griffin: he's a barbarian  
me:  
me: wHAT 
> 
> anyways i did NOT expect for this fuckin twink-ass elf dude to be a BARBARIAN, and i am SO delighted by it. fitzroy tries to sell himself as a put-together, composed guy, and i am SO ready to see the underlying rage that this dude definitely has. griffin saying that fitz was a barbarian TOTALLY took me off guard but i am SO into it. i wanna see fitz go into a rage so bad, the idea of this fuckin guy being a damn barbarian is soo interesting me (thus why i wrote this fic lol)  
i'm sure this fic is quickly going to be drawn and quartered by canon, but ah well. 
> 
> (i think griffin said somewhere that fitz was gonna multiclass, and i know its probably not gonna happen, but i reallly hope fitz turns out to be a bardbarian. i mean, fitz has a +2 charisma i think, which is pretty good for a lvl 1 character, so maybe he'll be multiclassing into bard?? i mean he'll probably multiclass into warlock or sorcerer since theyre also cha based spellcasters but like a guy can hope yknow) 
> 
> one last thing to note: the name of this fic in my google docs is "sir fitzroy the angry boy". an apt title
> 
> Edit: griffin said that fitz was a sorcerer in the new episode, rip my bardbarian dreams lol


End file.
